But when the boys reached the village and looked down the Overgate where the school was situated, a sudden change came over their mood. There was a dreadful silence which struck terror into them. The school "was in" and they would be punished for being late. With fluttering hearts they mounted the outside stair, went through the "pend" that led to the school building, opened the door, stood before the indignant teacher and the expectant and by no means sympathetic scholars, took their punishment bravely, and sat down with smarting hands to their work.
This humble institution was about the last specimen of its class. It was an instance of the comparative ease with which, not so long ago, schools could be set up, and schoolmasters could be made. The schoolmaster, Mr Sloan, had been a house-carpenter. When old age began to steal upon him, and he found manual labour too much for his strength, he was advised by his fellow-elders in the small sect to which he belonged to start a school. "You've a gude haund o' write," they said, "and ye're no a bad coonter; and the members o' oor body will send their bairns to ye." He took their advice, and carried it out with the greatest ease. First of all, there was no difficulty about getting a schoolroom. Choosing his own workshop, he cleared out the benches and the shavings, scrubbed the earthen floor, swept down the bare walls, put in a few plain desks and forms which he had made with his own hand; and the thing was done. According to his idea, no more furnishings, such as maps, globes, or pictures, were required. Then there was just as little difficulty in converting himself into a schoolmaster. He laid aside his working-man's clothes, wore his Sunday best every day, bought a bit of old leather and fashioned it into tawse; and lo! the transformation was complete. The house-carpenter in one day had been changed into a teacher of youth.
Equally simple and easy was his method of education. All he required his pupils to do, besides their writing and arithmetic, was to commit to memory the Shorter Catechism, Proofs, and Psalms; and he rested satisfied that these good words, when swallowed, like a blessed medicine would purify the heart, and enlighten the head. And all that he, the teacher, needed to do was to direct and stimulate them by means of the tawse; for did not the wise man say that the scourge was the great instrument to be used in the education of the young! "He that spareth the rod hateth the child." His scholars were placed on the plain, beaten highway, and his whole duty was to drive them forward. He was an educational drover. He was never known to have given a single explanation of any kind on any subject whatever.
On this particular day, it chanced that the work of the school bore very hard on poor Willie Torrance. The first lesson he was called upon to say was a question in the Shorter Catechism. "Wherein," asked the teacher, in slow and solemn tones, "consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?" "The sinfulness," answered Willie, in a lugubrious, singsong voice, "of that estate whereinto man fell"—and then he came to a dead stop. "Go on, sir!" said the teacher, sternly. Willie could only run over again, "The sinfulness," etc., in the desperate hope that he would thus gain an impetus which would carry him through the remainder of the answer; but it was all in vain. Leather was applied smartly to the palm of his hand; but this, while it gave a keener realisation of the feeling of the sinfulness, did not contribute at all to its theological conception. He was sent to his seat in disgrace, and sentenced to be kept in during the dinner-hour to learn his neglected task.
The reading lesson came next, and every boy and girl was called upon in turn to read a verse. The chapter was in the Old Testament, and consisted chiefly of a long list of jaw-twisting Hebrew names. Easy-going teachers used to skip such a chapter,—one of them, an irreverent Gallio, alleging as a reason, that it was "a mere hatteril o' nick-names." But Mr Sloan, a strictly orthodox man, held that every word and letter, nay, every jot and tittle, were "profitable for instruction in righteousness," and would not tolerate this playing fast and loose with the inspired record. As it was, these Jewish names stuck in Willie's throat. In the supple jaws of old Orientals, without doubt, they were as a sweet morsel to be rolled under the tongue; but, in the narrow and stiff jaws of a Scotch boy, they were hard nuts which could neither be cracked nor swallowed. A smart box on the ear was suddenly administered, but it did not contribute to the clearing of the head, or the loosening of the vocal organs. There was no help for the lad. He was left in the midst of the verse, like a lamb entangled in a thicket of brambles, and the class proceeded with the remainder of the task.
The writing lesson followed. Willie, grasping the pen tightly between the forefinger and thumb, dipped it in the ink; but alas! the ink bottle was too full, and, on bringing out the pen, he let a big blot fall upon the paper. He licked the ink up with his tongue; but a very ugly mark was left upon the copy. And when he tried to make a stroke he only made another blot. The master gave him a smart rap on the knuckles with the ruler; but this only shook his hand, and flustered him. He could not keep his fingers free from the black liquid; and, in his desperation, he wiped them sometimes on his corduroys, sometimes on his hair, and sometimes on his face, until he looked as if he had been exposed to a shower of ink.
The dinner-hour now intervened, and he was locked up in the schoolroom all alone to get up the Catechism lesson which he had been unable to repeat. By dint of sheer hammering, he managed to fix the words, not the meaning, in his memory. Yet all the while he was looking out on a green hill opposite, where a boy of his acquaintance was herding a cow. Oh! how he envied that boy! How delightful it would be if he could get free for ever from school, and pass the long summer day in the open air, rolling on the grass among his favourite animals!
After the dinner-hour came the most difficult task of all. A column of figures on the slate was put before him, and he was told to add them up. He did not know how to add; he did not know even the meaning of the word, and no explanation was vouchsafed to him. He sat wondering how it should be done, and feeling that his brain was becoming a mass of confusion. Casting a stealthy glance upon his neighbour's slate, he found that his neighbour was putting down quite easily under the column a row of figures. He concluded that the whole thing was a puzzle, and was only to be found out by experiment. Accordingly, he tried first one set of figures and then another, but every time he was wrong. At last the master, losing patience, was driven to the use of sarcasm. Seizing the boy's ear, twisting him round, and pointing to a stucco bust which was over the door, and which, indeed, was the sole ornament in the school, he said, in withering tones, "There's your brother." Then, tapping the little confused skull, he added, "You've a head, and so has a pin." The whole school laughed at these sarcasms. They were well known. They were the master's only jokes, and, therefore, did duty very often.
Willie had now run the gantlet of all the lessons and all the punishment. The road to knowledge had not been to him a green and flowery lane, along which he was led with ease and delight. It had rather been a thorny brake, through which he had been dragged by main force, and from which he issued hot, dishevelled, and bleeding. It never occurred to him to ask, "What is the use of all this?" He had a vague impression that this education, like measles and whooping cough, was one of those serious dispensations of Providence which all must go through, and which must be borne with patience.
But now came a relief. Mr Sloan, soothed by the good dinner which he had just eaten, sank into his usual afternoon nap; and the scholars immediately turned from their books and slates to subdued fun and talking. Willie, greatly relieved, stood up and began to tell his neighbour, Button Bowie, as they called him, all the strange sights which he and Bob Fortune had seen that morning: the partridge with the brood of chickens, the chaffinch's nest, and the fight between the wood-pigeon and the sparrow-hawk.